Monsters Lurking: The Depression Diaries

Monsters Lurking: Get out of my Head

WARNING:

This post is not for the faint of heart.

Depression. The state of feeling sad, angry, anxious, nervous……yada yada yada. More like the state of being in a constant funk you can’t pull yourself out of, never feeling that your good enough, or your mind being in a constant shit storm. Then there’s the hate, anger, sadness, loneliness, panic, and anxiety attacks that make you feel like your heart is going to explode into a thousand pieces. Depression. Damn I hate depression and by the looks of it, it’s not fond of me either.

I have been dealing with depression for almost 14 years now. 14 long years. Right after my first born was born. Boy that post partum depression reared it’s ugly head. Did I seek help for it? No, nope, not at all. Why you ask? Because I was scared they would take my son from me. I was scared they would think that because I had depression that I would not be a “Fit” mother for my son.

Last thing I wanted was to be seen as someone who couldn’t take care of their son because of depression. When that wasn’t the case. I may have had depression but, that did not in any way shape or form affect my ability to parent. Shit, I GOT THIS!

Instead it made me sad all the time. Lonely. Oh man, I have never felt more alone. I could be in a crowd of 1,000 people and still feel like I was all by myself, like I had been abandoned by everyone.

Why is it when I look at this couch all I think about is emptiness, loneliness. Nobody there.

Damn how it F**k’s with me.

It made me feel like I was never good enough. Had I been told I was not good enough, no not ever. So, then why did my depression make me feel like it? Why? because that’s what it does. It F**k’s with your mind.

There is no light in a clouded mind.

The darkness never goes away.

My mind always feels like I have a giant dark cloud in control of it. I have my own personal storm cloud, but instead of hovering over my head, it consumes my head. It follows me everywhere I go to. Kind of like the storm clouds in the cartoons do, you know they follow the character around raining on them constantly and zapping them with lighting. It’s funny in the cartoons, not so much in real life.

No matter what you seem to do you can’t escape this constant dark cloud. It’s like a super thick fog that you can’t see through. There was no light in my mind. No hope. It was all doom, despair, sadness, loneliness.

Anxiety is a killer.

When the anxiety kicked in, geez, I felt like I was going to die. The littlest thing would trigger it. I could be having a good day and BAM…anxiety would flare up. My heart would be racing so fast I would feel like at any second it was going to explode. I couldn’t breathe, my lips would start tingling and going numb, I’d feel like I was going to pass out. I would try to lay down and take deep breaths but that did not work at all. Nothing seemed to help my anxiety.

I hated my husband.

By a year after marrying my husband, my depression had gone out of control. I mean ABSOLUTELY out of control. It did not matter what my husband did he was Damned if you do & Damned if you don’t. My depression was making me angry now, and my anger was geared toward Justin. Just the sight of him would piss me off. He hadn’t even done anything but any time he’d get around me my anger would go psycho. I COULD NOT STAND THE SIGHT OF MY HUSBAND.

I put him through living hell all the time. This man had done absolutely nothing to me and I hated him. Stay away from me, leave me alone, get the f**k away from me. Geez, he couldn’t do anything right. I would freak out on him over nothing. Again, he had done absolutely nothing. It was me crying out for help. How could he not see I need help. I’m screaming out for help.

It was me needing him to say “We need to get you help Karen” because I had to much pride to say it myself. He never did say it either. Months more went by and I finally told him I need help. I told him how it was making me feel about. It was hard for him to hear it. To hear that I couldn’t stand the sight of him, I hated him, he instantly pisses me off when he get’s around me. I made sure to also explain to him that that’s not really how I felt, that it was my depression making me feel that way.

Getting the help I needed.

A few days later I went to my doctor and he put me on medication. I no longer need to take anxiety medicine but do take a depression pill on a daily basis. Do I still struggle with it? Yes. I try and take it day by day. I have good days and bad ones still. But, I am a HELL of a lot better than I was last year, 6 years ago and even 14 years ago.

Don’t be afraid to get help. You aren’t weak for asking for help, your not a bad parent if you have depression and your kids won’t be taken away for it.